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5Rhythms Tribe: Community is the next Buddha

January 30, 2015

Dear Dancing Feet,

One of Gabrielle’s guiding visions when painting her final artistic offering was to highlight not only our 5Rhythms Teacher community, but also the shining souls that are our worldwide community of dancers.

Our students are our greatest teachers.

Many years ago, Gabrielle and NYC based student, Meghan LeBorious began a passionate writing affair through the dance. Meghan has been tracking her raw and real experiences weekly for over a year and has offered Our Tribe her intimate ongoing blog, NOTES ON PRACTICE:

“I have had this experience before — I shut down to one person and wind up accidentally shutting down to everyone else as the same time. Was this guy really going to hurt me? I doubt it. Was shutting him out emotionally going to help keep me safe in anyway? I doubt it. The only one who suffered in the situation was me. If shutting someone out could really keep you safe, I’d be all for it, but it just doesn’t seem to work that way. I think it might be possible to have a boundary, without having to create an energetic Great Wall… READ MORE

And, as a 40 year old community of dancers, we always love hearing from those that remember those days, especially as eloquently, honestly and wildly as Eliezer Sobel in My adventures with an Urban Shaman:

In the very early days of Gabrielle’s work, it seemed to me that she may have been under the impression that the 5Rhythms work should be “enough” for people, and as a result, those of us who were simultaneously seeing therapists or taking antidepressants opted to keep quiet about it, as if it would somehow invalidate the power of her work, or even incur her disapproval. This dynamic changed over the years as Gabrielle grew in her own understanding and humility at recognizing that there can never be a “one-size-fits-all” remedy for what ails the human soul. And actually, even she was getting some “outside help”….READ MORE

For me, Eliezer’s story portrays Gabrielle’s irreverance in being a teacher and how she always guided us to take great care not to demonize the many different parts of being human, to not judge anyone’s imperfections. The 5Rhythms teach us that we all see the divine in our own unique way and, sometimes, it doesn’t look like what we’d expect in ourselves or what we’d expect in another.

As Thich Nhat Hahn said, “Community is the next Buddha.”

We hope these offerings inspire your dance, your practice, your day to day life, your personal journey to unraveling the beautiful being within.

Blessings,
Jonathan

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